I’d say that forum thread that was linked above would be pretty helpful for you since you’re talking about a 3D sidescroller… As for if your character would swing into the bg… that’s up to you! I’d assume you’d ‘lock the z axis’ so to speak, and worry about 2 dimensions with a fixed 3rd.
You may need to just do more within blueprints and come back to the idea if these tutorials are losing you.